Juniors

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Sabău trained at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in his junior years. As a junior, Sabău was a prodigious player who won several youth tournaments. In 1990, he reached the final of the U14 European Junior Championships at the age of 13, which he narrowly lost to Maxime Boyé.^[2] In the following year, Sabău dominated the U14 circuit in the newly-created Tennis Europe Junior Tour, collecting the two most prestigious trophies of the year at Petits As and the U14 European Junior Championships, beating Juan Antonio Saiz in both finals.^[2][3] Two years later, in 1993, he won the Wimbledon junior singles title, beating Jimy Szymanski in the final (6–1, 6–3),^[4] finishing the year as the No. 2 junior in the world. He was ranked as the junior world No. 1 for four months that year. After winning the final with Jan Szymanski in 2003, Sabau sold his properties in Romania (houses and land) and moved permanently to Cyprus.^[5]

Pro tour

Sabău turned pro in 1993, at age 16, and the next year he reached the doubles semifinals of the Bucharest Open, paired with Andrei Pavel.^[6]

Sabău made his Davis Cup debut in 1994, when he posted his first two wins, against Jeremy Bates and Mark Petchey of Great Britain.

When he made his first appearance at a Grand Slam tournament, at Roland Garros in 1999, he lost in the first round.

After a series of injuries between 2000 and 2002, he had to start from the bottom of the ATP rankings, and played mostly in Challenger Series tournaments. Sabău won three Challenger titles in his career: Homestead in 2004, Košice and Budapest in 2005.

His biggest achievements in the ATP Tour are reaching the semifinals twice, at the Bucharest Open in 2003, where he lost to Nicolás Massú and at Gstaad in 2005, where he lost to Stanislas Wawrinka.^[6]

Sabău got his best ATP Singles Ranking in September 2005, reaching World No. 74. Later that year, he played for the first time at the US Open, but lost in the first round to Andre Agassi.

In 2006, he made his first appearance at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and his second at the French Open but failed to advance past the first round in any of the three.

2007, by contrast, was a poor year for Sabău. Playing the ATP Challenger Series, he did not advance beyond the second round in singles in any events, losing in the first round fourteen out of eighteen times. In seven tournaments in doubles, he only advanced beyond the first round once.

His poor results the previous year meant Sabău was relegated to the ITF Men's Circuit for 2008. He captured one title, Romania F1 Futures tournament, and reached two other finals. His ranking rose from World No. 630 at the end of 2007 to No. 460 by the end of 2008.

Sabău played far fewer events in 2009 – twenty compared with thirty-one in 2008. He reached two Futures finals but failed to win a single main draw match at Challenger level, in four events played. (The previous year he won just one Challenger main draw match in ten tournaments entered.) Sabău finished 2009 ranked World No. 627 in singles. For the second year in a row he competed in just two tour doubles events, both Futures, reaching the semi-finals in one.

Sabău competed in sixteen events in 2010, all in Romania, Italy, and France, and all but three ITF Futures. He reached one final and four semi-finals, and won a Challenger main draw match for the first time in two seasons. His ranking climbed a hundred spots, to finish the year World No. 527.

Sabău was busier in 2011, competing by early June in more events than he had in all the previous year. All but one were Futures tournaments. He won one title, Bulgaria F3, and lost in the first round just once. His singles ranking climbed to be in the middle 400s.

Sabău then retired in late 2011 despite a few successes. In a nearly two-decades-long career, he just won around $700k as prize money.^[6]

Singles: 1 (1 title)

More information Result, Year ...

Result	Year	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1993	Wimbledon	Grass	Jimy Szymanski	6–1, 6–3

Close

Singles: 25 (9–16)

More information Result, W–L ...

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	0–1	Sep 1996	Brașov, Romania	Challenger	Clay	Dinu Pescariu	6–4, 2–6, 3–6
Win	1–1	Sep 1996	Budapest, Hungary	Challenger	Clay	Attila Sávolt	6–2, 6–2
Loss	1–2	May 1997	Curitiba, Brazil	Challenger	Clay	Gustavo Kuerten	6–3, 4–6, 3–6
Loss	1–3	Apr 2002	Mexico F4, Guadalajara	Futures	Clay	Andreas Fasching	2–6 ret.
Win	2–3	Jul 2002	Romania F2, Bucharest	Futures	Clay	Esteban Carril	6–1, 6–3
Loss	2–4	Nov 2002	Réunion, Reunion	Challenger	Hard	Federico Browne	0–6, 6–4, 5–7
Win	3–4	Jul 2003	Romania F5, Cluj-Napoca	Futures	Clay	Thomas Oger	6–4, 6–1
Loss	3–5	Aug 2003	Romania F8, Bucharest	Futures	Clay	Ionuț Moldovan	4–6, 4–6
Win	4–5	Aug 2003	Romania F9, Bucharest	Futures	Clay	Nicolas Renavand	6–3, 6–0
Loss	4–6	Aug 2003	Romania F10, Brașov	Futures	Clay	Gabriel Moraru	4–6, 7–5, 1–3 ret.
Loss	4–7	Sep 2003	Brașov, Romania	Challenger	Clay	Daniel Elsner	2–6, 1–6
Loss	4–8	Oct 2004	Quito, Ecuador	Challenger	Clay	Giovanni Lapentti	4–6, 3–6
Win	5–8	Nov 2004	Homestead, United States	Challenger	Hard	Wesley Moodie	5–7, 6–2, 7–5
Loss	5–9	Nov 2004	Puebla, Mexico	Challenger	Hard	Miguel Gallardo Valles	6–7(5–7), 4–6
Win	6–9	May 2005	Budapest, Hungary	Challenger	Clay	Jean-Claude Scherrer	1–6, 7–6(7–3), 6–3
Win	7–9	Jun 2005	Košice, Slovakia	Challenger	Clay	Adam Chadaj	6–1, 6–2
Win	8–9	May 2008	Romania F1, Bucharest	Futures	Clay	John Millman	7–5, 6–3
Loss	8–10	May 2008	Romania F3, Pitești	Futures	Clay	Victor Ioniță	walkover
Loss	8–11	Aug 2008	Romania F18, Brașov	Futures	Clay	Victor Ioniță	4–6, 3–6
Loss	8–12	Jun 2009	Romania F5, Bacău	Futures	Clay	Alexander Sadecky	1–6, 1–0 ret.
Loss	8–13	Jul 2009	Romania F8, Mediaș	Futures	Clay	Victor Ioniță	6–0, 4–6, 5–7
Loss	8–14	Jul 2010	Romania F6, Cluj-Napoca	Futures	Clay	Javier Martí	6–7(5–7), 7–5, 1–6
Win	9–14	May 2011	Bulgaria F3, Sofia	Futures	Clay	Enrico Burzi	6–2, 6–3
Loss	9–15	Sep 2011	Romania F9, Brașov	Futures	Clay	Teodor-Dacian Craciun	4–6, 6–1, 3–6
Loss	9–16	Oct 2011	Italy F29, Frascati	Futures	Clay	Axel Michon	2–6, 1–6

Close

Doubles: 2 (0–2)

More information Result, W–L ...

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Oct 2004	Grenoble, France	Challenger	Hard	Michael Berrer	Uros Vico Lovro Zovko	2–6, 4–6
Loss	0–2	Apr 2005	Rome, Italy	Challenger	Clay	Victor Ioniță	Manuel Jorquera Dmitry Tursunov	6–1, 6–7(4–7), 4–6

Close

Singles